


Even In Death

by arenoseAnima



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Body Horror, F/F, Incest, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-05
Updated: 2012-08-05
Packaged: 2017-11-11 11:32:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/478093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arenoseAnima/pseuds/arenoseAnima
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rose isn't so easily rid of the dark gods' influence. (Written for Round 2: Monsters.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Even In Death

You’re crossing the street with her hand in yours when there’s a noise like someone hitting raw steak with a sledgehammer.

When you look to see what’s happened, your ears still ringing, you see Rose on the pavement, her limbs going in ways they shouldn’t go, and there’s a bright smear of too much blood on the hood of a Jeep, and people are screaming, and then you’re screaming, too.

The driver stumbles out of his car, swearing, out of breath already. Everything seems so _sharp_ as you bend down to her broken body - you could count the pebbles in the asphalt, describe exactly the way the sun shines on her slack face and the smell, oh, god, the smell. He kneels beside you. You ignore him as you shake her, but she’s limp, dead weight in your arms.

At least at first.

She tenses, but it might just be the blood rushing through your own veins; she arches, but it might be the asphalt buckling as your world crumbles.

Then she sits up, coughs once, twice, gags on something that squirts from her throat in sticky black tendrils. It drips down her chin, squirming, then evaporates into sizzling black smoke in the sun. The SUV’s driver screams and is back on his feet faster than Rose can say _knryip._ She clears her throat thickly before her eyes flutter open. She’s _alive_.

She tries to speak, but only more of the tendrils drip from her lips. You hush her with a kiss. The blackness stings your mouth and you don’t care.

By the time you pick her up in your arms the driver is back in his car, and really you don’t blame him. You would probably already have left.

(That isn’t true. Everyone is someone to somebody.)

Rose doesn’t even try to stand on her own, which is how you know she’s - what, “really not doing well?” She _died_. You saw here there, not much more than a smear on the road. But still, she doesn’t struggle at all. She just lays her head on your shoulder and closes her eyes.

That’s when you realize she isn’t breathing. You shake her in a panic, and she looks up at you with feline irritation. Still not breathing. You feel for her pulse; it’s not there either.

Oh.

But _she’s_ there, whatever snips and snails and deep ones’ scales make up a Rose, firm and heavy in your arms, even if her body heat is fading quickly. When you get home, she leans up and kisses your cheek, then tells you, drawing clumsy breaths to speak, that she loves you.

\---

You are very far from ashamed to say that you spend the best part of the next day in bed with her. You almost lost her for good and now every kiss, every tender touch is so reassuring that you start to cry more than once. She doesn’t talk much, but she never really did. Drawing breath seems to hurt her now. You tell her not to worry, and cover her mouth with kisses as you promise to do all the talking for her from now on. Her smile and nod are answers enough.

But however perfect the day may be, and however soft-focus starlet her dead girl smiles are, you still have to eat. You make some pizza rolls, your favorite, the kind that turn your mouth into Mordor if you bite into them too soon.

When you try to share them with her, she throws up maggots onto the bedspread.

\---

The second day is worse. Your good morning kisses are answered by the sight of her eyes, which have clouded over in the night. She grasps at your shoulders and asks where you are, what’s happened, why everything is dark, her voice hoarser with every word. You tell her not to worry and that you’ll make everything all right again, because that’s what you _do_. You’re Robin Hood, right?

Right, she says, as the black tears stream down her face.

She falls asleep again shortly, and you spend a few hours researching cataracts, as if that’ll help. None of the sites you find come anywhere close to mentioning maggot puke or car wrecks, but there’s nothing else for you to do. You’re not an eldritch expert or anything. That’s Rose’s job.

She mutters and moans in tongues while she sleeps. Eventually you give up your futile search and go back to bed. Her nightmares quiet down when you wrap your arms around her and mumble helpless declarations of love into her hair. She passes into peaceful sleep after a few hours of your worthless comfort; you might think she’s finally left you if she didn’t move in your embrace every so often.

\---

On the morning of the third day, you’re awakened by screaming. Rose is floating a good yard above the bed, the sheets hanging off her. She’s arched taut in the air, her mouth open painfully wide. Black bile pours from her lips, her eyes, her ears and nose; you grab for her and only succeed in tearing off the sheets to reveal the wounds that have opened on her body during the night. She writhes in the air, head flopping about in ways that make you sick to your stomach. The black droplets that fall from her burn wherever they touch you and stain your skin. The pain seems to seep into your bones.

But that’s not important. What’s important is that Rose is still screaming and sobbing. You grab her by the waist and pull down - whatever’s keeping her up there is strong, but not stronger than you. When you finally wrestle her back into the laws of physics, you see your grip has left black imprints of your hands on her skin.

You hope she won’t be mad.

At first you think she’s going to fall asleep again. Whatever that was, it looked exhausting. But her eyes open despite their sightlessness, and you watch her cloudy pupils fix on you. She touches your face; her thumb strokes your cheek, leaving a smear of darkness. Her fingers are trembling against your skin. When you look down, you see that the wounds are still there, and some of them are so deep you can see bone shot through with dark veins. She kisses you with dry, chapped lips.

“Please,” she says.

It’s been months since you kept your strife specibi filled. Your weapons and hers are stored in a safe in the garage. You don’t want to leave her for even a second, but her breaths are beginning to return - hot and hard and rattling with something only she would know the name of. You squeeze her hands as you slide out of bed.

You’re only gone for a minute or two, but when you get back she’s curled in a spreading pool of black that licks against the walls and over the floor. You step through it to her, even though it burns you. She watches you, shaking, the bumps of her spine showing against the pale parchment of her skin. You know this feeling, this sharpness at the end of the world, and you wish you didn’t. But if wishes were horses, then Roses would ride.

You sight down the barrel of your rifle. She brushes her sweat-slick bangs away from her forehead and touches a space there with her fingertips, circling it; it’s between her eyes, an inch or so up. She closes her blind eyes, and she holds her breath, and in the end you can’t even tell her you love her one last time.

_Bang_.


End file.
